Bet you thought that with my smarty-pants rep, this was gonna be yet another riff on Gris and his sordid past, didn'tcha?
Sorry.
This one is actually somewhat technical.
For a number of years, I dealt with a minor, but annoying vibe in my handlebars that was manageable as far as comfort went, but made my mirrors pretty much useless above 50mph or so.
I'd hear of filling handlebars with bird shot enough years ago that my beard was still dark, but between being the type that'd tug on Superman's cape in years past, and rarely owning anything that such a minor adjustment would have had any effect on anyways, I'd never tried it.
But since having devolved to mere humanity, and developing an appreciation for ergonomics once I'd settled into the cop bike, the notion toyed with me more frequently.
This spring, since my neck bearings were in line for replacement anyways, I decided to give it a try.
Doing a little research aforehand, there's an interesting series of comments to be found on the topic at:
www.xs11.com/tips/modifications/mods14.shtml
There's some pretty smart fellers over there that went into detail way beyond my base interest, regarding frequency attenuation and such, and the concepts of partial vs. completely filled bars. Definitely worth a read to those interested in the topic.
Myself, I decided to go the quick and easy route, and just fill the whole bar.
There was a time when WalMart carried birdshot, or so I thought. But PC-ism being what it is these days, and there being some CDs they won't carry because of what people might say, it shouldn't have suprized me to learn that the local one didn't.
But, in the interest of catering to little Ralphies everywhere intent on shooting their own eyes out, they do carry Crossman BBs in handy 3,000 and 6,000 count plastic bottles. Never being one to scrimp on lead - or copper in this case, I went all out and bought the big one.
The only other component necessary for the job was a reasonable cork to plug the bar ends. And since my Better's into cheap hooch, it was a snap to talk her into guzzling a couple of bobbles of Vin de Chardonnay as a favor to my mirrors. As it turned out, her brand had gone high-tech and replaced the fine Sicilian tree bark originals with dense foam cored newfangled gizmos that really worked better in this case than Ma Nature's would have. I took the corks, stuck a set of nails in the ends as centers, then ground the O.D. to match my bar's I.D., plus a pinch for friction's sake.
Plugged one end of the bar with a cork, stuck a funnel in the other end and started pouring. When it filled, I tamped it lightly against my boot and topped the bar, minus the length of the cork. Tapped the other cork in place, and viola.
One proviso: if you have a set of stock KZ bars, the 3,000 count bottle should do the job. I'm now the proud owner of 3,000 extra reasons to teach the cat next door some manners...
The results have been very good, if somewhat short of astounding. My left mirror is good into the 70mph range with greatly reduced vibration. The right still has a bit of a buzz in it, but is significantly improved. I've managed to tune out a bit more of the buzz by adjusting the switchblock/master cylinder position on the bar.
So, if you've ever been curious about trying it, filling handlebars with shot is a cheap and reasonably effective tactic against handlebar vibration.